The Autumn Statement passed relatively benignly and only time will tell whether our new Chancellor has saved his best for the March 2017 Budget. Certainly the one area of pensions reform which all professionals seem agreed on, the possible abolition of the pensions Lifetime Allowance, was notable for its absence or indeed any reference to pension contribution limit changes, bar one which has seemingly snuck under the radar. The Chancellor…

Employers in the UK started to automatically enrol their employees into workplace pensions in 2012 when they reached their staging dates, however, the employers affected at that time were mostly blue chip UK names such as Tesco who employee 476,000 people. Our clients started to reach their staging dates in early 2014 and so they have been running workplace pensions for approaching three years. The three year mark is…

As the world now knows, Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the USA. 12 months ago, this result would have seemed utterly outlandish, but over the past couple of weeks, particularly since the FBI’s last intervention in the Clinton email saga, a Trump victory has actually been the more likely outcome. I suspect the ramifications of the election, the way it was conducted and the various accusations made…

For many in our society the term inflation, the measure by which prices are rising, is simply an oft quoted statistic that bears little relevance to people’s lives. However, those of us old enough to remember the 1970’s and 80’s are likely to have a very different view. Inflation was a constant concern during those years and was sometimes out of control leading to several economic crises. Over the last…

Tesco’s recent spat with Unilever is all about the consequences of Sterling’s recent weakness following the Brexit vote. As the costs of imported goods start to rise in the coming months, supermarkets like Tesco are all too aware of the potential hit to their profitability. They will be wary about asking consumers to pay more and their suppliers will also be reluctant to take less for the goods they are…

The Autumn Statement will be upon us again in November and it seems like we will be dusting off the same potential threats to tax relief on pensions as we have fretted about for the past couple of years. The Government have pulled back from acting upon the rumours at the last minute in recent years, but this time it might just be different. This will be Philip Hammond’s first…

Trump vs Clinton – what stock markets make of it so far One would think that an election campaign could withstand only so much controversy and that by now, logic would make a Clinton victory guaranteed, but I suspect right to the last, the result will remain in the balance. For Americans, it seemingly isn’t so much about Trump, rather what he stands for in very simple terms, which is…

The Autumn Statement will be upon us again in November and it seems like we will be dusting off the same potential threats to tax relief on pensions as we have fretted about for the past couple of years. The Government have pulled back from acting upon the rumours at the last minute in recent years, but this time it might just be different. This will be Philip Hammond’s first…

Brexit means Brexit, but what does Quitaly mean? Deutschebank has been the centre of attention in recent days with concerns mounting about its solvency. Worrying as this is, it is not the only European bank that is in trouble. Italy’s banking system is swamped with debt and shares in the largest bank, UniCredit, have fallen by around 67 per cent in the past 12 months. The second biggest, Intesa Sanpaolo,…

Deutschebank has been the centre of attention in recent days with concerns mounting about its solvency. Worrying as this is, it is not the only European bank that is in trouble. Italy’s banking system is swamped with debt and shares in the largest bank, UniCredit, have fallen by around 67 per cent in the past 12 months. The second biggest, Intesa Sanpaolo, is down by 45 per cent and Monte…